Motivated President
Sustainable development, third world problems and healthy lifestyles will
be the key motifs for Clive Harridge in his year as RTPI president, reports
David Dewar
Clive Harridge is the first of a new breed of RTPI president. On 25 January the Entec director will become the first president to be directly elected by the membership. Two years ago he won the first vote of the entire membership for the role of junior vice president. This distinction is fitting in a year when the institute arguably faces bigger challenges than ever before.
Harridge first became involved in RTPI activities through the institute’s West Midlands branch and he has played a long-running part in the region’s pioneering planning aid work. He has helped to establish the West Midlands Planning Aid Service and has held key posts on the Council for Planning Aid.
Such work has seen the service grow in importance, with around 500 volunteers in England tackling some 3,000 cases in 2004-05. “It has been doing some really valuable work in helping those who do not have a voice in planning and those who cannot afford planning services to have a say,” he remarks.
Harridge cites three key themes for his presidential year. Firstly, he wants to cement planning’s position at the heart of sustainable development. “We are seeing sustainable development being promoted by the government through national strategies, the communities plan and sustainable communities indicators. Planning is central in all of these,” he points out. “I would like planning to be seen as a critical factor in the success of all these.”
He argues that this approach is rooted in the origins of planning, when the 19th century philanthropists and the garden city pioneers set out to make better places. “You saw the interweaving of economic, social and environmental strands coming together to create societies and communities and the promotion of greater wealth and well-being,” he observes.
The burgeoning field of sustainability appraisal and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is one example of the burdens that planners are being asked to pick up. While practitioners have mixed feelings at this prospect, for Harridge these areas represent a great opportunity. “Government guidance has only just been published and it will take a while for people to take the concepts on board, but I am a great believer in sustainability appraisal. It has a very valuable role,” he insists.
“We should not get bogged down in systems and processes but use it in a proactive way,” he adds. “We should use it to improve the sustainability profile of the things that are being planned. If it is seen as a way of enabling sustainable development to be embedded in planning, it should be recognised as a valuable part of the whole process. It also links to the overall purpose of planning set out in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 to promote sustainable development.”
Harridge is confident that people’s attitude to sustainability appraisal will improve as the see it bearing fruit. He speaks from experience of a number of Entec projects that have developed the technique, including a recent assessment of the impact of ODPM plans to increase house building. The report emerged last month alongside the government’s response to the Barker review (Planning, 16 December 2005, p9).
“This type of work has never been done before,” says Harridge. “We have tried to assess the overall impact on a range of different growth scenarios and how the impact is significantly reduced when different energy efficiency standards are introduced.” The work shows that tougher sustainable building standards can have major benefits and reduce the impact of development substantially, he argues.
The global importance of planning is the second key theme for Harridge this year. Some parts of the world urgently need good planning to tackle issues including poverty, rapid urbanisation and slum areas, he maintains “If good planning is needed in the UK, then by heck, good planning is also needed in large parts of the world,” he says.
The RTPI is working closely with its counterparts in Canada and the USA as well as the Commonwealth Association of Planners (CAP) to tackle these issues in what could prove to be a busy year on the international front. Diary dates include the World Planning Congress in Vancouver in June and the UN Habitat urban forum, the flagship event for the UN agency to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities.
The institutes are working hard in preparing for these events, Harridge reports. “Planning is seen by UN Habitat as a key element in tackling some of these global issues,” he notes. “There are some startling statistics. In Africa, 72 per cent of the population lives in slums. We need to find ways to address these communities’ needs and planning is an element of this.”
ON a similar note, the RTPI has been working closely with CAP and the Planning Institute of Australia to provide support for areas hit by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. “We have provided support to Sri Lanka and elsewhere,” says Harridge. “Climate change issues are also particularly significant and relevant to small island states in the Pacific and Caribbean. Many of these are commonwealth states and often only have a handful of planners at best, so we are looking at ways of supporting these countries.”
The third area of focus for 2006 will be in promotion links between planning and health. “Again, going back to the origins of planning, its pioneers were promotion public health,” Harridge recalls. “In recent years that concern has been lost. I want to see a closer connection between the two. It is not just about providing health centres in new developments. It also means thinking about what type of community contributes towards a healthy lifestyle. It is about things like providing opportunities for people to walk or cycle to work.”
So how well will the planning profession get to grips with such major responsibilities in the 21st century? “It is well geared up, but we live in a pretty fast-moving world,” says Harridge. “New sills and responsibilities are required. Planners need to adapt to their changing role as well as to emerging issues such as climate change. A sustainable community is a healthy community, and planning has a key role to play in achieving that.”
The institute has been through the New Vision process, a reorganisation of its branch structure, a major review of education policy and a revision of its Royal Charter. Its president-elect is confident that such reforms have left it well equipped to cope with future challenges. “The membership of the RTPI is 19,000, which is the most it has ever been. We are seeing an expansion and a range of interests in planning as a career,” he concludes.
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